Separate or Collaborate?

Last week Bryant described chaotic classrooms at a Rochester high school and asked how we might better support those students trying to learn in the face of distracting peer behaviors. In this era of blaming teachers for everything wrong with education, her article is correct to identify the role that some students play in making classrooms difficult for learning. Classroom environment affects all students and is therefore something we must address as a community.

Although disruptive behavior is a real thing, blaming or punishing students as being solely responsible is tricky because the issues are complicated. Disruptive behavior can be traced to student frustration about curriculum that feels irrelevant. It can be traced back to anger at teachers who don't have time or ability to give students exactly what they need. It can be traced back to organic processes - like ADHD or depression - that have gone untreated. It can be traced back to the adults in students' personal lives who have not provided the care and stability that have been needed for children to thrive.

It's easy to feel both anger and pain about disruptive behaviors that hurt everyone. These behaviors most directly impact students who are trying to learn and whose work is made difficult if not impossible. Disruptive students are also negatively impacted of course, although they don't often seem to understand the long-term implications of these behaviors on their own futures. The problem of disruptive behavior affects all of us because both sets of students will be the next generation of citizens, parents and neighbors in this community.

Bryant's implied question about whether we could have schools (only) for "students who want to learn" is a bit rhetorical because having schools for those who want to learn requires having schools that also work for those students who are not so keen about learning - and this is the hardest work to do. The district definitely needs to rethink the discipline and support services offered to students, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. Our community needs to step forward to assist as well, and both the district and community should be collaborating to problem-solve.

One obvious solution is to make class sizes smaller and/or to lower the teacher-student ratio by creating jobs for community members in the classroom. Extra adults in the room would help students stay focused, assist teachers in dividing students into smaller learning groups, and provide one on one attention for removal or diffusion of disruptive behavior. How could we make this happen? Let's think collaboratively about partnerships and funding that could support our schools and community members simultaneously. It's worth the effort.